


You Know It All By Heart, Why Are You Standing In One Place?

by Lady_Ganesh



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic), Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Chance Meetings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, M/M, One Night Stands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-24 21:13:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16183304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ganesh/pseuds/Lady_Ganesh
Summary: When you've learned you're never getting what you were chasing after, you're finally free to start thinking about what you really want.(Or: Kent and Chris meet in a bar.)





	You Know It All By Heart, Why Are You Standing In One Place?

**Author's Note:**

> A few canon notes: for crossover purposes, Chris has no boyfriend at the time of this story, and the shared universe they're in has less societal homophobia than Check Please! (set essentially in our world) but quite a bit more than Yuri!!! on Ice (which is homophobia-free).

The guy came in when Kent was working slowly through his beer and trying to ignore ESPN on the bar TV. Kent got a vague sense of height, broad shoulders. But this wasn't the time or place. He’d just wanted to get out of his apartment for a little while. Just wanted to break the loops his brain kept tracing, over and over, what he might have done back in the Q, said to Jack back at Samwell. What would have happened if he'd dared send that letter to Jack, instead of tearing it up and throwing it in the trash.

There'd been a dozen thinkpieces on the Internet before dawn. A dozen out-of-context photos from the old days, Kent’s arm around Jack's shoulders, the two of them looking happy, intimate. _Best friends, my ass,_ said the Facebook posts. _Speculation naturally turned to Zimmerman’s former teammate,_ said ESPN.

Kent wasn’t stupid. He knew he got the shit end of the stick both ways. Now _Kent Parson_ was the coward who wouldn't come out. Who had abandoned Jack when Jack needed him most. If _he'd_ come out first, he would've been the asshole who was looking for attention, putting too much pressure on Jack.

The Aces were heels, and Parson wasn't hockey royalty. This was always how it was going to go.

Shit, he was an idiot.

"One of those nights?" said a voice next to him. His voice was low, sensual.

"Guess so," Kent said, without turning around.

"Not much in being the _second_ gay player in the NHL, huh," the man said. His accent was French, but not the French that Kent was familiar with. European, probably.

Kent turned to him, anger starting to spark, but the guy's eyes were sympathetic behind his round glasses. "Look," he said instead. "I'm really just here to drink myself into oblivion, so--"

"Why I'm here too," the man said. "Want to do it in company?"

Kent shrugged. The guy wasn't bad-looking, short brown hair with bleached tips almost grown out. Around Kent's age. Pretty eyes, if Kent was being honest.

"Name's Chris," he said. "Not gonna lie, I'm not much of a hockey fan. _Dated_ a hockey fan once. But...well. Hard to miss what's been going on."

"Yeah," Kent said.

"Me, I’ve got friends getting married," Chris said. "And my greatest rival...He’s my greatest rival. But I’m never going to be his." He took a long drink from his small glass. "Knew it was gonna happen. Thought I was okay with it." He smiled at Kent. "Lies we tell ourselves, yes?"

"Right," Kent said. "Um, I’m Kent. I guess you knew that."

Chris nodded. "I mean, I can fuck off, if you want. But you look...the way I feel, I guess."

What the fuck. Might as well listen to someone else’s misery. Supposed to make you feel better, right? Sharing your sorrows or whatever the fuck? "Tell me. About this rival."

Chris smiled. "Not much to tell. Spent my whole career chasing him, never caught him, never will. Always the bridesmaid."

"You loved him?"

Chris shrugged. "Loved the idea of him, more than him. Not his fault. He found someone who wanted him no matter what. Didn't care about his records. Just--loved him."

"So you’re losing your rival and the guy you wanted at once?”

"Like I said,” he said, putting his beer down. “Wanted the idea of him. It's not even the kind of thing where anyone should have been looking out for me. It’s not--there aren’t any bad guys here. It just makes you think about what you could have had."

Kent nodded.

"You wanna get out of here?" Chris asked. "Might be more fun than drowning our sorrows."

"You've got a room here?"

Chris nodded. "Skills clinic. Easier to be close to the rink."

The--shit. All that stuff about records and competition. "Figure skater."

Chris grinned at him, and leaned closer. "How many times do you have the chance to fuck the Swiss national champion?" His breath was warm at Kent's ear.

"Swiss?"

 _"Mais oui,"_ he said genially, and pulled his wallet out. "I'll get this."

Kent let him pay, half-wondering how much figure skaters made and if he was really the one who should pick up the tab, and followed Chris out of the bar. He'd picked a hotel not far from his rink; this time of year, with the Cup final over, there weren't enough people paying attention to hockey to worry about. He'd just wanted oblivion. Tourists were usually the best bet for that. He’d forgotten that that fucking kiss was going to be everywhere for a while.

This guy, though. He wasn't that bad. Misery loved company, right? Might as well make the most of it.

"Does your room have a minibar? I could pick up a few bottles of something, if--"

"I like the way you think," Chris said. "You need a key card to get up to my floor--" He slid one out of his wallet. "407. Give me a minute or two, it won't be as obvious. There’s a minibar, don’t bother running out."

"Thanks."

 

He wandered around the lobby like an asshole for a couple of minutes, sent a text to his dad about his sister's birthday, then made his way slowly to the elevator, like it was an idea that had just occurred to him. He waved the key card in front of the sensor, hit the button for the fourth floor. 407 was close to the elevators, and it was a short walk to the door.

Chris was waiting for him in a silk dressing gown with a wild Asian print, holding one of the tiny bottles from the minibar as promised. "Voila," he said, grinning.

It occurred to Kent that Chris was the kind of guy he'd never been seen with in public. Too fey. Too flamboyant. A _figure skater._

It also occurred to Kent that he didn't really care tonight. Maybe he wouldn't ever care again.

"They've got the best tiny bottles money can buy," Chris said, "providing you have lots and lots of money."

"Good news, I'm an NHL player," Kent said. "I'll be rolling in dough until I retire and declare bankruptcy."

"I thought that was football players."

Kent shrugged. "Happens in every sport, probably. What about you guys?"

"Complicated," Chris said. "Depends on the country and the skater." He sat down on the bed. "And how much money you have to start with. I do all right, don't worry about it." He reached up and took his glasses off, folding them carefully before putting them on the nightstand closest to the door. "You know," he said, watching Kent's face. "We don't have to do this. Any of it. I can walk you back downstairs, if you want. I'm not...that's not what I do. Okay?"

The thing was, Kent believed him. "Okay," he said. "It's not--it's not--it's been a shitty couple of days." He walked to the bed and sat down next to Chris. "Can we just drink for a while?"

"As long as you want to," Chris said.

"I'm so glad you don't give a shit about hockey," Kent said, and took the bottle. It was Scotch, mid-level, drinkable for sure. Kent took a long drink and handed it back. "So tell me about him. Your guy."

Chris blinked at him for a second. "Easier to show you," he said, and picked his phone up from the nightstand.

The video was called _Stammi Vicino--THEN AND NOW_ and started with a figure skater that looked familiar. "He model?" Kent asked.

"Yeah," Chris said, watching the video over his shoulder. "He did a cologne ad you probably saw, Azzaro. Big billboards."

Kent mimed tossing his bangs off his forehead. "That one?"

Chris grinned. "That one."

The skater lifted his face up, cast his eyes to the ceiling, and started. The song was opera, and Kent didn't know enough about opera to say what the piece was actually about, but the skater looked sad, melancholy.

He _was_ hot, but model-hot; unapproachable. Not like Jack had--

Shit. He had to stop thinking about Jack.

The guy was a hell of a skater, though. Beautiful jumps, the kind of spins the guys made fun of but secretly half-wished they could do. Graceful. Kent hadn't ever wanted to do anything else but play hockey, but sometimes he thought it would be cool if he could do both.

He didn't watch figure skating normally, but it was a good routine.

"Blue eyes?"

"Yeah," Chris said. "Real blue. Like a perfect summer sky."

"Thought you were over him."

Chris shrugged. "Just watch."

The song ended, the skate ended. "Pretty," Kent said, because that seemed like what he should say.

"He's the best skater in our generation," Chris said. "He's got every quad that humans can skate. 'Pretty,' too."

"Look, I didn't mean--"

"No, it's fine. I'm just--here's the next one."

The 'now' of 'then and now,' Kent assumed, but there was a different skater on the ice, someone with dark hair, wearing a blue variation of the purple costume the first skater had been wearing. Different build, Asian. The song started, and the skater tilted his head back the same way, circled, jumped once, twice, three times. Was he spinning less? Kent wasn't sure, he'd never counted rotations or anything like that--

Then the first skater joined the second on the ice. _My friends are getting married._ So these were the friends.

Shit, they were pretty together, even Kent could figure that out. And then they touched each other's faces, and holy shit, no wonder Chris had gotten his heart broken. If watching Jack kiss Eric Bittle after the Cup burned, this was a fucking firestorm.

"Damn," Kent said.

"Damn," Chris echoed.

"Okay," Kent said, putting his little bottle down. "You win."

Chris laughed. "Yeah, I guess. Tell me about yours."

"Nothing you don't already know, probably. I played with Jack back in the Q. We were a great team. At least I thought we were. And he ODed and I got drafted, and I tried to fix it and I never could." _And I never will._

"The Q’s high school, right?”

Kent nodded.

“You were young," he said.

"Yeah," he said. "Guess I was."

"When's the last time you talked to him?"

"Really talked? Shit, two years ago. And mostly he was telling me to fuck off." He shook his head. "I never could take a fucking hint."

"I talked to Victor," Chris said. "We talked all the fucking time. But I...like I said. It was the idea of him. The kid who'd encouraged me when I was in Juniors. Who I looked up to. Not...a real person, you know?" He took a drink and handed the bottle back. "Is he still real to you?"

"I don't know," Kent said. "That's...shit, that's actually a good question.” He took another sip. “I thought you were just supposed to get me drunk and take advantage of me."

"Drunk, if you want," Chris said. "But I'm not going to take advantage. I already told you that. You want in, you tell me _before_ you start swaying."

"Thanks," Kent said. "You're--you didn't have to do this."

"I didn't want to be alone, either," he said, softly. "This is better."

"Let me see you," he said. "This guy, whatever. What do you do?"

Chris took his phone back and pulled up another video. "Probably not your style," he said. "But--"

In the video, Chris wore a red-and-black bodysuit, form-fitting, lots of spangles. There was more blond in his hair, and what looked like a hint of a goatee. It was obvious that he wasn't as graceful as the skaters he'd just seen, but he was still compelling to watch, and his ass sure looked great. Kent found himself half-wishing he could tell the difference between a triple and a quad.

Shit, the rest of the Aces would probably make fun of what he was doing. He would, if he'd been with the team. Maybe it was the Scotch. Maybe it was just that Chris had been decent to him. "You're right," he said. "It's not...it's not my style. But it's cool. Thanks for showing me."

"Thanks for asking," he said.

Kent leaned over and kissed him.

Chris made a little hum, soft, and pulled Kent into his arms.

Kent did handjobs, mostly. Blowjobs. Quiet, dirty sex in club bathrooms. Not going back to someone's hotel room to make out.

But this was good. It wasn't that often that he got someone with a real athlete's body. Chris wasn't as muscular as Kent, but he was lean and strong, and it felt good as his fingers dug into Kent's shoulders.

"Not bad," Chris said, when they parted for breath. "For a hockey player."

"Fuck you," Kent said.

"Wait," Chris said, "is that an offer? I thought you hadn't decided."

"Funny, funny." Kent kissed him again, slower, savoring him, the Scotch on his breath. Shit. Maybe it _was_ an offer.

"Ah, you're pretty," Chris said when they parted again, ruffling his hair. "Come sit on my lap, stay a while."

"You always this confident?"

"You're still here, aren't you?" Chris grabbed him, faster than Kent would've expected, and pulled him up onto his lap, so he was straddling Chris. "Ah, skaters. We really do have the best asses." He grabbed Kent's for emphasis. Kent ground down into him. Chris wasn't wrong. He had a nice body, this close. Really nice.

Chris slipped his hands under Kent's t-shirt. That was pretty good, too. He had big hands. Not as callused as a hockey player's. _"Voulez-vouz couchez avec moi,_ Kent Parson?" Chris's smile was easy and soft.

What the hell did he have to lose at this point?

"Yeah," Kent said. "I guess I would."

Chris pulled Kent's shirt over his head, passed his palms across Kent's bare chest. His fingers teased the dogtags around his neck. "Yours?"

"Nah, I’ve been playing hockey my whole life. My mom was a Marine."

Chris cupped Kent's cheek with his palm and brought him back down for another kiss.

Kent wasn't sure when the last time was he'd kissed someone this much. He definitely couldn't remember when he'd enjoyed it this much. Chris didn't seem to guess or hesitate; he'd made the decision to take Kent back with him, and he was fine from there. Kent envied that ease.

The gel in Chris's hair crunched under Kent’s fingers. "How much can you see? Without your glasses?"

"Enough," Chris said. "You look really good."

"So do you," Kent said, and meant it. He was getting hard, and Chris was hard against him. That was good. Shit, why didn't he let random dudes pick him up in hotel bars more often?

Oh yeah, that was right. The rumors. The stories about Kent Parson and Jack Zimmerman had been enough. He hadn't wanted to fuel the fire. Be a distraction to the team.

What a fucking joke.

Jack fucking Zimmerman had kissed his college boyfriend in the middle of the fucking ice after the _Stanley Cup. Live._

Chris started unbuttoning his jeans. "Shit, you look good," he said. "You make me want to stay in Vegas a little longer."

"You have to skate tomorrow?" Kent unbuttoned Chris’s shirt and pushed the fabric down from his shoulders, to expose most of his chest. Looked like he shaved his chest, but Kent didn't feel like getting weird over that. It didn't feel bad, anyway.

"It's just rehearsal," Chris said. He grinned. "You have some ideas?"

"Maybe," Kent said. "I've never been that creative, though. You might have to help."

Chris traced a fingertip from Kent’s collarbone to his navel. "I'll remember that. I can get creative." Kent shivered. "What about you? Season's over, but I know that doesn't mean it's _over."_

Kent shrugged. "Back to work. Might go back East, see my dad. But cardio, training, ice time. Probably not much different than what you do."

"I have to get a routine together," he said. "I'm stuck on music." He kissed Kent's shoulder. "Maybe I can run some by you. Later.”

"Swiss music?"

"I'm not confined to my country's music," he said. "I know lots of music. Lots of languages. I'm good with my tongue."

"Are you always this cheesy?"

"Only when I put enough effort into it," he said, happily. "Come on, you're thinking too much."

"I've been thinking too much for a while," Kent said. "Hard to stop."

"Don't worry, I've got a lot of experience stopping guys from overthinking." Chris pressed a kiss to the side of Kent's neck. "And we've got all night." He squeezed Kent’s ass, and Kent ground into him again.

“Shit,” Kent said. “It’s been too long.”

"You're not going to come too fast for me, are you?" Chris licked his lips, exaggerated, greedy. "I want to make sure you're really getting your money's worth."

"Don't you realize you're in Vegas?" Kent pushed Chris's hair back, ground against him. "House always wins."

"It's a good thing I don't bet anything I'm not already planning to lose," Chris said, grinning at him. He leaned back against the pillows and pulled Kent down on all fours. That was good. Really good. "Well. I am planning on losing my shirt."

"I swear to Christ, I will _walk out of this hotel room."_

Chris laughed. "I don't think you will," he said.

"Maybe not," Kent said. "But don't think you can get away with _too_ many dad jokes. They're well-known boner killers."

"Yeah, fair," Chris said, kissing the stubble on Kent's jaw. "I definitely wouldn't want you to lose what you've got." He rubbed his palm against Kent’s erection, pushing back as Kent's hips pushed forward. "Not bad for a hockey player."

"Seriously?"

"Skaters don't...enhance," Chris said. "No shrinkage down below. I mean, you don't either, _obviously._ But you aren't my first hockey player."

"We get tested," Kent protested, but weakly, between the hand on his cock and the fact that he knew there were guys out there trying to dodge the tests and sometimes succeeding. "And I don't need...enhancements. You can tell, right?"

Chris chuckled. "I thought I was the one making dad jokes."

Kent kissed him again, because it felt really good, and that saved either of them from making any more goddamn jokes. Kent slid down, pulling Chris with him, so they were lying on their sides, face to face on the mattress. Kent unbuttoned his fly, slid his own jeans and shorts off, and basked a little in Chris's appreciation. "Told ya," he said.

"No complaints here." Chris made quick work of the rest of his clothes. "I hope you don't have any, either..."

"No," Kent said, because he sure as fuck didn't. Chris was bigger, uncut, really fucking hard. "What--what do you want to do?"

Chris smiled. "You tell me."

"I don't--shit. Normally I do quickies at bars."

"Well then, we've got to do this right," Chris said, stroking Kent's cheek.

"It's not--I'm not a girl or whatever," Kent said, because he had his fucking pride.

"If you were a girl you wouldn't be here," Chris said, "so why don't you just think about what you actually want?" He looked serious now. “I don’t care if you’re a hockey player. But I don’t play games and I'm not here to be insulted. Okay?”

That was blunt. Kent guessed he deserved it. “Okay,” he said. “I still--you don’t have to be gentle.”

“Are all of you hockey players masochists or have I been lucky?”

“It’s not--”

Chris sighed, like he was carrying an unimaginable burden, and got his hand on Kent’s dick, where it belonged. Shit. _Finally._

 _You talk too much,_ Kent wanted to say, but it’d been a while, and Chris felt good. It wasn’t the urgent, intense speed of a hookup; this was deliberate, Chris wanting to make him feel good, wanting something mutual, and for a guy who wasn’t cut he was good at jerking off someone who was. He got Kent to the edge and eased off, and then did it again, and shit, it was _torture_ and it was hot, and Kent called him every name he could think of and Chris laughed like Kent was telling a really great joke.

“See,” he said, not breathless enough for Kent’s taste but getting there, “you hockey players. Always about instant gratification. Beating the clock. But we figure skaters, we know how to use the clock to our advantage--” He twisted his wrist, and Kent wanted to scream. “Really make a routine sing.”

“You _asshole,”_ Kent said, as his eyes threated to roll back in his head. “Just--just fucking let me _come_ already, you can--fuck, you can do whatever you want--”

“But this is what I want, _cheri.”_ Chris licked his lips. “I like you eager like this. Needy.”

“Shut _up--”_

Chris kissed him, pulled him to the edge _again,_ and this time he took his whole fucking _hand_ off Kent’s dick before he could come. “Should I eat you out?” he asked, blue-eyed innocence, and Kent came at that, across Chris’s chest and his own stomach, so hard he saw white under his eyelids.

“I think that’s a yes,” he said, when Kent could breathe again, and dove down between Kent’s legs, his tongue slick and hot. No one had _ever_ done that to him, never offered, and Kent didn’t realize how it would feel, how much he’d want to open up under the attention.

“Can I?” Chris asked, and Kent was nodding yes before he even realized what he was agreeing to. Chris produced lube from _somewhere_ and was knuckle deep in Kent’s asshole, and Kent thought it was supposed to hurt, but maybe Chris wasn’t wrong about him screwing around with the wrong guys. “Good?”

Kent just nodded. His dick was doing most of the talking for him anyway at this point. Not that his dick had the wrong idea. It wasn’t enough to get him off again, but it felt good enough that Kent didn’t want him to stop. He was sensitive, sure, but that--made it better? Different, anyway. Still good.

"I'll stop if--"

"Nah," Kent said. "I like it. Just--don't stop, okay?"

 _"S'il tu plait,"_ Chris said, and _worked him,_ got a second finger in, and Kent was thrusting up, not bothering to try to keep still, because it felt _good,_ too much but too much in the right way. "Can I stop to get the condom on?" Chris asked, just as Kent was starting to lose patience with getting fingered. "Or should I--"

"Do it," Kent said, sliding back to give Chris more space, opening his legs. "Get in me already."

Chris outright laughed at that, saying something in French that Chris couldn’t begin to understand. He slid his fingers out of Kent and took a condom off the bedside table--Kent hadn’t even fucking noticed, but he must’ve gotten them out when Kent was still screwing around in the hallway--and opened up the package with both hands.

“Shit,” he said, reverently. “You should see the way you look.”

“I want to see the way you look when you’re fucking me more,” Kent said.

“So impatient,” he said. “I know we have to skate in the morning but--”

“Stop dicking around,” Kent said. “Shit. _Please.”_

Chris lubed his cock, slid the condom on, lubed the condom. Every inch of Kent’s body was screaming that it was bullshit, that he was taking too long, that he was nothing but a fucking _cocktease--_

But it felt good, being teased. Being smiled at.

Kent wasn’t sure when the last time was that he’d gotten off with someone he actually liked. Who seemed to like him back.

“Stay still,” Chris said. “Until I tell you you can move. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Kent wasn’t sure he gave a shit any more, but he let Chris take his time sliding in, gritting his teeth and closing his eyes as Chris inched in deeper and deeper and deeper.

 _“Bien?_ \--Good?”

Kent nodded furiously. “Just--just fuck me.”

 _“Si tu veux,”_ he said, and French shouldn’t do what it did to Kent, but it still fucking _did._ He closed his eyes and tipped his head back and felt Chris bottoming out, felt the touch of his hips against Kent’s ass.

Kent said, “Fuck, I’m fine, let me _move.”_

“Hold on,” Chris said, and he sounded a little breathless. Kent opened his eyes again and reached over to touch Chris’s hips, let his fingers map the complicated muscules in his thighs, and Chris wasn’t as steady now, and Kent let himself be a little bit smug. _I did that,_ he thought. _I’ll do it again._

He squeezed down against Chris’s cock, and Chris gasped, his eyes wide and greener in the hotel light, and it felt like his hips made their own decision to move this time, pulling out and slamming back into Kent, and that was too much and not nearly enough, and now it was pulling them both along, and Kent was just in for the ride. “That all you got?” he said, trying not to give away how hard it was to form the words.

 _“Rien, cher--”_ And it sure as shit wasn’t, and Kent had read how much force figure skaters used in their jumps, but it was something fucking else to have someone holding your hips, fucking you hard and steady, something else to feel him moving with you, keeping up with what you threw at him. Kent pushed back some and clamped down some, but mostly he let Chris do the work, and Chris seemed more than happy to be doing it, not hesitating for a second, his broad hands feeling perfect on Kent.

He wasn’t going to get off again, but it was gonna be closer than he’d thought. His cock was half-hard against his stomach now, and every thrust went through him, top to bottom.

Chris adjusted his angle a couple of times, and then hit the sweet spot, laughing when Kent gasped, but then losing some of his cool as Kent grabbed for him, pulling his chest down, leaning into the angle, getting Chris closer, closer.

It lasted too long, not long enough, and Kent felt the pulse when Chris came, steady, like a heartbeat, the condom filling. Kent closed his eyes, wanting to feel all of it, wanting to lose himself again. Chris’s hand cupped his cheek. “Shit,” he said, catching his breath. “Not bad, for a hockey player.”

“Not too bad for a figure skater,” Kent teased back.

Chris pulled out slow, reluctantly, and slipped the condom off. “Thanks,” he said. “I--really needed that.”

“So did I.”

“You get cleaned up and we’ll finish the bottle, all right?”

“I think we did.”

“We can open up another one and finish that,” he said, dropping onto the mattress next to Kent.

“I can’t stay the night,” he said. “I’ve--you’re right, about that shit you said early. I can’t stay in the closet much longer. But I’m not ready yet.”

“You don’t have to be,” Chris said, rolling onto his back. “I won’t--”

“I trust you,” he said, wondering if he should have but knowing he did. “I’ll stay a little longer though. If that’s cool.”

“I’d really like that,” he said.

 

There were big fluffy robes in the bathroom, so Kent threw one on after he’d cleaned up. Chris was sitting up on the end of the bed, back in his own silky bathrobe. He’d opened up a little bag of almonds that probably cost half as much as the hotel room. “It’s not a proper spread,” he said. “Victor would be ashamed of me. But you guys lose a lot of weight by the end of the season, right?”

“Yeah,” he said, and helped himself to a few. “I can pay, if--”

“Let’s not be crass,” Chris said, with an expansive wave. “Maybe you can pick them up next time.”

 _Next time._ He felt himself hesitating, and knew Chris would see it. When it had been Jack he hadn’t thought about anything but the two of them, lasting forever. He hadn’t thought beyond the next hookup for a long fucking time.

It was about time he started thinking beyond the next hookup.

“I don’t--there doesn’t have to be a next time. I didn’t mean--”

“No,” Kent said. “I--this was really good. I’d--next time doesn’t sound bad.”

“I get it,” Chris said. “Where I’m at, I don’t need to hide from anybody. But it’s not always that easy, and I know it. Okay?”

“Okay,” Kent said. “I--I’m not gonna pretend I don’t know you if you’re at our rink or whatever.” He leaned in, let Chris kiss his forehead. “Maybe I’ll make up some bullshit, but I won’t--I’m not a dick.” He handed his phone over. “And next time could be--we could catch up over beers or something, even if you’re not into doing this again. Just. Hang out, I guess. I mean. If that’s what you were thinking.”

“That’d be nice,” Chris said, seeming to mean it, and fumbled for his own phone where he’d tossed it on the nightstand. Kent put his number in with a picture of Kit instead of a name.

 

In the elevator he discovered that Chris had put his number in without his name, too, instead using something in French that Kent couldn’t read. Kent tossed it into Google and it came back as (more or less) _the best you’ve ever had._

He didn’t go straight home when he got back into his car; he drove for a while, losing himself in the lights of the Strip, chewing things over.

He thought about how Chris had said he’d liked the idea of his rival, and wondered how long he’d been chasing the idea of Jack Zimmerman and who they’d been to each other in the Q.

Maybe he didn’t have to keep doing it.

 

The next morning, there was a crowd on the ice when he got out there, most of the Aces surrounding an assortment of unfamiliar young men in athletic clothes.

“Are we seriously getting into a dick-measuring contest with a bunch of _figure skaters?”_ Swoops was asking, and the grumbling was pointing to _yes._

Bad day to be the last out of the locker room, apparently. “What’s going on?” Kent asked, approaching the figure skater who seemed to be at the head of the scrum. He had a clipboard, and he didn’t look as intimidated as the Aces were clearly expecting him to be.

He was a couple inches shorter than Kent, and slighter, younger, with brown floppy hair. “We’ve got ice time, it’s on the schedule. I know it’s your home rink, but we’ve had this on the books since before the playoffs. My coach just confirmed it last week.”

“Skills clinic, right?” Kent said.

The kid nodded. “We don’t want to get in your way, but some of these guys have flown halfway across the world,” he said. “You’re Kent Parson, right? We’ll be on Team USA together next year.” He stuck his hand out. “Leo. I swear I don’t want to fight about this.”

“Yeah, me neither,” he said, shaking it. “Look, you guys need to warm up, right? I think we could manage some warmups without war breaking out. By then our coaches will be out here and we can let them yell at each other.”

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

“You are de La Iglesia, yes?” That was Kimmie, two hundred eighteen pounds of Kazakh-Korean aggression recently acquired from the Aeros. “You were at Colorado Springs. You know Otabek Altin?”

Leo lit up. “Yeah,” he said. “We lost him to St. Petersburg this year, but I’m hoping he’ll come out next summer--”

Kent let them talk, because the Russians and Kazakh players didn’t buy into that ‘figure skating is for girls’ shit, and he figured that would be enough to ease the tension. Swoops stayed by his elbow, with Grannie still hanging back, but Kimmie’s fanboying over ‘the Hero of Kazakhstan’ was a good distraction, and some of his guy started wandering off to at least get some warmup time in.

By then Chris Giacometti was on the ice, his warmup clothes a simple, dark contrast to the flashy outfits Kent had seen in the YouTube videos. No glasses, of course, and his hair was jelled back into place. Not the flamboyant Swiss champion. Not the guy he’d met at the bar, either. Just an athlete like all the others.

He glanced over at Kent, and Kent realized he was waiting; however Kent wanted to play it, Chris would follow along.

 _What the hell,_ he thought. There probably wasn’t anything in being the second out player in the NHL, but second still beat third. The first step if he wanted to do that was to stop running from who he was. And the first step to _that_ was to do what he’d said he would.

No pretending.

He raised his hand and waved.

Chris waved back, and smiled.

“Come on, assholes,” Kent said, to anyone who was still watching him. “Come meet the Swiss national champion, and try not to embarrass yourselves.”


End file.
